When Life Intervenes – a bookseller’s stock to be sold

- by Bruce E. McKinney

Dealers retire, the books live on

Anyone involved with books knows that they have babies at a rate that puts rabbits to shame.  Many people don’t want them and others can’t live without them.  In a town just north of Columbus, Ohio, in Hilliard they have been loved and appreciated for decades and have been particularly fecund.  Nelda Bridgeman, after more than thirty years in the trade and some eight decades on the planet is looking, hoping, expecting to sell her stock of what has become some 20,000+ items.  It is time.  She is eighty-two and is planning a get-away.  And her transition is someone else’s opportunity, her goal to sell the entire stock.

 

By categories she is offering:

 

5,000 military with strong section of submarine material, military history and dozens of early Jane’s;

 

600 examples of western Americana, 2,000 on the United States and 300 on the Civil War, and 1,000 maps;

 

Juveniles.  Many scarce firsts;

 

A strong selection on Ohio and James Thurber;

 

Sets.  Too many to enumerate, also runs of magazines;

 

The Collection of a later 20th century weapons inventor including 130 military manuals, bomb and shell casings, rifle stocks, and uniforms.  File drawers of air cuttings from the Von Kirk [Enola Gay navigator], a collection bought many years ago;

 

64 boxes of reference material;

 

More, much more including 90 metal 3 deep shelving units.  Also many singles;

 

“Why am I selling?  When you get to be 82 you know its time.  My material has been stored for years and is in very good condition.  I believe it to have a retail value of $230,000.  For this I am asking $75,000.”  Visits and calls are welcome.

 

As Ms. Bridgeman has made abundantly clear, “the time has come.”

 

To read her description, an appealing compilation, click here.

 

To contact the seller, Nelda Bridgeman

 

3987 Main Street

Hilliard, Ohio 43026

614.876.6403

 

Email: bookphilately@gmail.com